


and I'd rather go blind (and let my body go numb)

by youmakemesoangry



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coldflash Bingo 2019, Hanahaki Disease, I promise, I'll be adding more characters as the story goes I'm sure, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-10-31 09:59:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17847254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youmakemesoangry/pseuds/youmakemesoangry
Summary: He rips up the next petal he coughs up and wishes, for the first time, that he never fucking met the Flash.





	1. Begonia

He feels the start of a tickle in his throat when Barry doesn’t stop him from shooting Lewis.

As Barry takes the gun from his hand, Len has to control the need to clear his throat.

“He broke my sister’s heart,” he says roughly. “Only fair I break his.” Barry looks down at him, a sad look that pisses Len off as much as it makes Len want Barry to never look like that again.

He holds it together until the police show up and Barry leaves. Then, he starts compulsively clearing his throat and gets himself a dirty look from one of the officers.

He starts to panic slightly, and he must have quite the look on his face because as soon as he starts actually coughing, an officer releases a cuff to allow him to breathe easier, to cover his mouth. He coughs harder and harder until he can feel his stomach start to turn.

Finally, he feels something making its way up his throat. He coughs and coughs, disgustingly and so fucking _hard_ , until it makes its way out. He gags around it and reaches into his mouth to pull out whatever the fuck he just coughed up.

It’s soft. Delicate.

He blinks around the tears that had appeared at some point during his struggle and he can’t tell what the object is.

“Huh,” says the officer to his left. Len squints at him, trying to see the cop's expression through his blurred vision.

He looks down at the object in his hand. He can see now what it is; a flower with delicate ridges and overlapping petals. It’s slightly wilted from saliva and, Len thinks, from being coughed up.

“The flower for justice. Ain’t that the height of irony, huh, Snart?” The officers laugh and Len drops the bud on the ground. “I’d wonder why you ate the damn thing in the first place, but I’ve seen perps throw up worse.”

 

As he’s in the precinct, waiting to the processed, he can’t help but remember one of the stories his mother would tell him as she put him to bed. Or, his favorite, to entertain him while she did her hair. A story that, as an anxious child, made him worry and worry for the characters, almost to the point of tears.

No matter how anxious the stories made him, his favorite part was always the look of joy on his mother’s face as she got to the happy ending.

 

On the drive over to prison for holding, he coughs up a single ruffled petal.

 

When Barry shows up, it gets harder to breathe. It feels like he’s breathing through a chest cold. He ends their conversation when he can feel another coughing fit wanting to start.

 

He coughs up a few petals a day and hides them when and where he can until fucking _Mark Mardon_ snatches him up.

The first thing he does after hearing Mr. Stormy Weather monologue is to look up the damn flower. Searches and searches until he finds the flower that matches the bud he coughed up months ago.

He throws himself into a coughing fit when he takes a deep, harsh, angry breath as he reads the meaning behind the begonia.

 

He rips up the next petal he coughs up and wishes, for the first time, that he never fucking met the Flash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> begonia: gratitude and giving thanks for a favor OR justice and peace between people


	2. Purple Heather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he didn’t get so attached, so stupidly sentimental, then he wouldn’t be dying with a bouquet in his chest and a hero who would rather see him in jail for life than ever love him back.

He goes to see Barry. He leaves the safe house he’s holed up in, far away from Mardon and The Trickster, and heads over to the West house. Barry comes in, only a minute or so after Len makes himself comfortable, followed by the lovely Miss West. The rush of cold air that follows them into the house makes him shiver slightly, enough to almost get him coughing.

He swallows around the hot chocolate instead, thankfully stifling the urge.

Barry shoving him against the fireplace makes his chest seize, and he manages just long enough to threaten Barry, to get him to back off before he’s turning his head and clear his throat into his fist.

Barry gives him an odd look, one that goes away when Len comments on Iris’ work. His look turns dangerous and it should make Len feel thrilled but he can only feel the tightening in his chest, the way his breathing is getting harder.

He avoids Barry’s eyes for as long as possible and manages it until he’s walking past him and can’t help but meet Barry’s eyes, the shock there too good to miss.

Unfortunately, Barry must see something in his eyes as well, because Len doesn’t even make it to the door before Barry’s stopping him, making his hero speech that makes Len clench his jaw and makes the need to cough almost unbearable.

“Sorry, I’m not interested in being a hero,” he says, forcing a glare that he doesn’t really feel. The pain in his chest is tiring, has been tiring for so long, that he just needs to get away.

“Well, you’re doing a pretty lousy job of being a villain this week.” Len swallows compulsively at it suddenly becomes impossible to breathe.

He gets his breath back long enough to have the last word before he’s gone, out the door and walking as fast as he can without breaking out into a full out run towards his bike.

He just barely gets his leg thrown over the seat before he starts coughing. He collapses forward, coughing against his fuel tank. He feels a few small pieces come out of his throat but doesn’t even try to look in the dark to see what they are.

 

After months of feeling the same petal make its way out of his throat, you’d think he’d be happy for a little change.

And he is, for a moment. As he makes it back to his safe house and rushes to the kitchen sink, coughing up the small, purple buds…he feels a sort of relief. They’re small, easier to get up.

Until he starts to choke and has to reach into the back of his throat to pull out the stem of a long flower, purple and green with a hundred small buds falling off into his mouth and onto the floor. He growls roughly, the noise barely loud enough to hear and it only serves to make him cough up more of the buds.

He throws the flower into the sink with as much force as one can possibly throw a flower before slamming his fist down on the table.

The pain in his hand distracts him from the pain in his chest, and it lets him breathe for a moment.

He closes his eyes and takes as deep of a breath as he dares to allow himself, and breathes it out slowly.

He pulls off his parka, throwing it over the back of a chair. He grabs his laptop and turns it on before sitting down on the couch. He taps his fingers against his mouth as he waits, a habit he picked up in prison.

Keeping a hand close to his face made it easier to hide the flowers when he coughed them up.

He searches for the flower until he finally finds it and has to release a slow breath from his nose, eyes closing, when he reads it.

He calmly closes his laptop before squeezing it in his fists, making the plastic creak.

He wants to break it but knows he can’t. Escaped convicts don’t have the luxury of replacing the electronics they break in fits of rage.

Instead, he just clenches until he can hear a piece of plastic crack and then releases it.

The flower is innocent enough, both of them are.

But he knows what they mean, knows where they’re heading. Remembers his mother’s stories, the romance his father didn’t want her filling his mind with.

In this case, Len thinks that maybe his father was right.

If he didn’t get so attached, so stupidly sentimental, then he wouldn’t be dying with a bouquet in his chest and a hero who would rather see him in jail for life than ever love him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> purple heather: admiration, beauty, & solitude


	3. Star of Bethlehem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’d be beautiful if he knew they weren’t killing him.

The first thing he does after settling into his bunk on the Waverider is wander until he finds the medical bay.

He scans the room, the sterile white of the walls setting him on edge as he makes his way slowly into the room.

“Is there anything I could assist you with, Mr. Snart?” He stills, an automatic reflex to keep from flinching.

That’s going to take awhile to get used to.

He looks at some of the equipment and picks up something that he thinks might be a scalpel or might just be a pen. He can’t really tell.

“Actually, I _could_ use your help.” He resists the impulse to look at the ceiling where her voice is coming from. “Is there a way to do like a…a full body scan?” There’s a brief pause.

“Yes, of course. Would you please sit down in the chair?” He cautiously sits down and leans back. “Is there anything in particular you want me to look for?”

“Just…you’ll know it when you see it.” He glances at the med bay doors.

“Do not worry, Mr. Snart. I have locked the doors.” He relaxes slightly and leans his head against the headrest, fingers toying with the edges of the armrests.

A blue light comes down from the ceiling, scanning down his body and he tries to stay as still as possible through the minutes until the light disappears.

There’s silence for almost a full minute and if Len was the worrying type, this would be the time.

“I think I should call for the Captain.” He sits up in the chair, clenching the armrests.

“That absolutely won’t be necessary, Gideon. Just tell me what it is.” There’s another long pause, and if he didn’t know that she was just a computer he would think that she was trying to delicately choose her words.

“There seems to be a type of flora taking up residence in your chest cavity, Mr. Snart. Even more concerningly, in your lungs.” So that explained the pressure. They were growing in there, and there were probably more than just the few he coughed up a day.

“Could you,” he pauses to swallow, trying to breathe evenly. “Could you show me?”

A screen on the back wall turns on and he gets out of the chair to slowly make his way over.

A black and white X-Ray image filled the screen and immediately regrets asking to see it.

It’d be almost beautiful, the heathers and the way they curl up in his lungs, if he couldn’t feel the way they press against the walls, the way he can sometimes feel the small buds rattling around.

They’d be beautiful if he knew they weren’t killing him.

“That’ll be all, Gideon. Thank you.” The med bay doors slide open without prompting as he walks through them and barely makes it to his room before he has to start coughing, his panic making his breathing too heavy, too quick, to not agitate the flowers.

He pulls the full stem out of his throat, gagging all the way, and drops it apathetically into the garbage can. He’s just happy Gideon has an incinerator.

That’ll probably be therapeutic.

 

“You and the Flash have the strangest relationship I’ve ever seen.” He slowly pulls his eyes away from the book he’s reading, really not wanting to have this discussion with a near stranger. They’d only been on the ship a week, and sure, they’d been through a lot already. Doesn’t mean he wants to be talking about this with an ex-assassin.

He keeps a finger on his page and closes the book, resting it down on his outstretched legs. He looks up at Sara and gestures to the space on the floor across from him.

“Please, by all means. Let’s have this very strange conversation.” She smirks at him and gracefully sits down and rests her arms on her raised knees. “Now. Elaborate?”

She rubs her nose with her thumb and she has a strange smile on her face, almost confused.

“Before we left, a few of us reached out to Team Flash. Let them know that we wouldn’t be necessarily ‘available’ for awhile.” Her rings glint as she uses finger quotes and he’s struck by how powerful her hands look.

Emotionally unavailable with a killer right hook.

He has a type.

“Well, wasn’t that nice of you.”

“I’m not that close to them, that’s more of the Arrow’s thing,” she continues like he hadn’t spoken. “But I know Ray and Jax did. Well, you know. _After_ the Professor kidnapped him and got him on the ship.” Len looks down and his mouth purses around a smile.

Heroes. They always like to think they’re better than criminals.

“So imagine my surprise when I get a call. From the Flash himself, no less.” He controls his face, doesn’t show the shock he feels besides raising an eyebrow.

Sara’s mouth turns up at one corner in a smirk anyway, making him roll his eyes.

“This story has a point? One you could get to at some point?”

“So I answer and the first words out of his mouth are ‘Is it true?’. No hello, nothin’.” He snorts and shifts until he’s sitting cross-legged, holding in a groan at the change in position.

“Yeah, unfortunately, speedsters aren’t known for their patience. Barry, especially so.” She twists one of her rings and smiles.

“I asked him what he was talking about, and he said. Well. He asked if you were going, you and Rory.” He tilts his head back and shifts his fingers until his book fully closes, knowing he’s not going back to reading it any time soon.

“Fascinating, truly.” He pushes up and can’t control the groan this time. “Are we shocked my nemesis was concerned about me being on a ship with his allies?” He tucks the book under his arm and turns to leave, his back to Sara.

“He asked me to watch out for you. To make sure you were okay.” He freezes and something stabs painfully in his chest. He doesn’t hear if she says anything else.

He walks away, moving quicker and quicker towards his bunk as the pain in his chest gets worse and he has to lean against a wall until the lightheadedness passes. He’s able to get a small breath that gets him coughing finally.

He makes it down one last corridor and into his room before he collapses to his knees, coughing and gagging until the flower makes it’s way up.

He gets it by the stem and pulls it out, and it opens like it’s blooming.

He throws it in the direction of his garbage can in disgust.

It’s a beautiful white flower and he doesn’t even have to look up what it is.

It was his mother’s favorite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> star of bethlehem: hope


	4. Marigold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It seems that Mr. Snart is experiencing negative side effects from the number of flowers that are currently growing inside him.” As she speaks, the blue light scans him. “The flowers that seem to have…changed, as well as spread.” He feels a needle inject him from the wrist cuff and he flinches. The pain meds kick in fairly quickly though, and he can take a deep, slow breath for the first time in almost a year.

Time is a funny thing.

They got on the ship in 2016, but Len has seen 2018 and gets weekly updates from Gideon of all the time in-between.

That’s how he knows Barry is engaged before it happens in their linear timeline.

He doesn’t cough up a new flower. Oh no.

He _throws up_ a new flower for three days straight.

Mick drags him to the med bay on day two.

“It fucking reeks of pollen and barf in here, Snart. What the fuck have you been doing?” He tries to shove Mick as he grabs the back of Len’s sleep shirt, but he’s too weak.

Which only pisses Len off.

“Get the fuck off me,” he growls, only to start coughing again, bending over with the force when he gags hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

“Not a chance,” Mick says apathetically, but his hand is gentle when it presses against Len’s chest to help him stand back up. “I don’t know what you fucking contracted on a damn future time ship of all things but it better not be the plague, I swear to god. I ain’t goin’ out like that.”

Len has to lean a lot harder against Mick than he would like, but Mick doesn’t even so much as pause with the added weight.

“How’s he doing?” Len manages to raise his head high enough to see Ray’s chest before his stomach twists and he has to close his eyes and breathe slowly and shallowly.

In through the nose. Out through the—

He gags and hunches forward.

“Wow, he really looks like shit.” He hears the crunch of someone biting into an apple and then Sara appears next to him. “You sure he doesn’t have the plague?”

“Better not,” Mick mumbles and he’s seriously had it. He gets enough strength to shove out of Mick’s grip and stumbles the rest of the way to the med bay.

He clenches his jaw when the door doesn’t hiss close behind him automatically.

He gingerly sits down in the chair and he feels Mick attach the wrist cuff to him.

“Gideon?”

“Yes, Mr. Rory?”

“You wanna tell me what the fuck this is all about?”

There’s silence until Len cracks an eye open, sees it’s just the two of them and waves a hand in acquiescence.

“It seems that Mr. Snart is experiencing negative side effects from the number of flowers that are currently growing inside him.” As she speaks, the blue light scans him. “The flowers that seem to have…changed, as well as spread.” He feels a needle inject him from the wrist cuff and he flinches. The pain meds kick in fairly quickly though, and he can take a deep, slow breath for the first time in almost a year.

Of course, that’s what gets him coughing again, but it doesn’t last as long as usual.

“Did she say ‘flowers’?” Len opens his eyes enough to see the X-Ray screen light up and, sure enough, there were different flowers in there.

Gone were the long stems of the heathers, and instead there where large, round flowers. The ones he’s been throwing up whole.

Len cleared his throat, closes his eyes and tilts his head back against the headrest.

“Why the _fuck_ are there flowers growing in your _fucking lungs_?” Mick’s voice gets sharper and closer at the end, and Len can tell he’s leaning over the chair.

“There was a story my mother used to tell me,” he says softly, not wanting to agitate the flowers.

He feels what he thinks is one of the tiny stems stab against the wall of his lung and his breath catches from the pain.

“There once was a farm boy who fell in love with a Princess. She was the fairest in all the land, of course.”

“What the actual fuck.”

“She loved flowers,” he continues, as if Mick hadn’t spoken, and tries to remember the way his mother sounded as she told the story. “She loved them so much that she asked her father if she could have a garden. He said yes, and he started hiring some of the nearby farmers to grow the garden. This farm boy was one of them and he got to spend every day seeing the Princess walk through the garden as he tended the flowers. He kept his eyes down as much as possible, not wanting to stare at her. She never knew he was there, of course. It hurt, made something hurt in his chest. And as the days went by, the pain got worse and worse.”

He pauses to cough, gagging up a petal.

Well, they’ve got dramatic timing, at least. He holds the petal up to the light overhead and stares up at it as he sees Mick do the same.

“He started coughing up flowers, the same flowers he loved and tended for the Princess. The coughing and pain got worse and worse until he couldn't work anymore. He stayed home in bed, barely able to move, barely able to breathe. The flowers were killing him.”

He drops his hand down and lets the petal fall to the ground, but he continues to stare up at the ceiling.

“But it turns out, the Princess _had_ noticed him and when he stopped tending the garden, she got worried. She missed him. She had been falling in love with him, you see?” He feels the corner of his mouth curl up saying that line, his favorite part growing up. He can still hear his mother say it. ‘You see, baby?’ she used to say, just to see him smile.

“So she went to visit him and saw him in his bed, slowly dying, and she began to cry and beg, beg him not to go because loved him too much. She loved him more than all the flowers in the world.” His mother used to spread her arms out real wide, at it used to make him giggle, happy that there would be a happy ending.

“And he was able to breathe again. He coughed up the rest of the flowers while the Princess held his hand. She kissed him when he was done, and he could finally breathe.”

He rolls his head to the side to look at Mick’s face, expecting to see…basically anything other than the very serious expression on Mick’s face.

“So you’re livin’ one of your ma’s fairy tales?” Len slowly nods. “Who is it?”

Len huffs a laugh, coughs up another petal, and tries to get his breath back.

“Who the hell do you think, Mick?”

“Ah hell, Snart.” Len flings the petal away in disgust. “Well, it can’t be that hard to get boy wonder to say he’s in love with you. He’s a bleedin’ heart like that.”

Len sits up, swings his legs over the side, and stares down at the petals on the ground.

“Yeah, well that’s the difference between real life and fairy tales, Mick. Life is never that easy and nobody you want ever loves you back.”

He stops vomiting the flowers, but he barely eats now. He’s too full all the time, stomach and lungs too full of flowers.

He barely goes on missions, and only on the ones that aren’t going to be that dangerous.

He’s walking back from a recon mission when he feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Great.

He feels his face twist into a scowl, pissed off before he even turns around. He has the gun out before he’s even shifted his weight.

He denies Barry, at first. Annoyed and thrilled and disgustingly _jealous_.

“Well, you have a particular set of skills,” Barry says reluctantly.

“Great movie. Last time we tried to be buddy-buddy it didn’t work out so well. For you.” He locks eyes with Barry, and really means it when he asks, “Why trust me now?”

Barry looks away first.

“Spit it out or I’m going to step back on that ship and pretend like this never happened.” Barry meets his eyes, face serious and determined.

“Iris,” he says softly. There’s panic there, and Len feels the flowers shift.`

“Oi, the girlfriend,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“Fiancée,” Barry replies, a pride there that makes Len sick, makes his stomach turn as the flowers spread.

“Mazel tov,” he makes out around a fake smile, swallowing around the need to cough. “What about her?” He drops that smile and glares.

“If you don’t help me, she’s gonna die.” Oh.

Oh, this is rich.

“True love? That’s your pitch?”

The irony isn’t lost on him.

Barry looks defeated, raises his arms and lets them fall.

“That’s all I got.” Len resists the urge to roll his eyes and instead lets his shoulders fall slightly.

Well, shit.

“And I assume saving your girlfriend requires us doing something…less than lawful?” Curse his damn sentimental side. He steps closer and can smell the ozone, the electricity coming off of Barry.

This is such a bad idea.

“We need to break into ARGUS and steal an alien power source.”

“The Flash,” Len can’t help but drawl, something a little hotter turning in his stomach. “A thief,” he says, thinking about it. He fixes his glove and has to look away in order to keep his eyes from dragging up and down Barry’s body. “That’s my kind of mission,” he says when he’s gotten a hold of himself. “My rules.”

Barry nods.

“Your rules.”

This is _such_ a bad idea. This is the worst idea he’s ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> marigold: despair and grief over the loss of love or cruelty and coldness due to jealousy


	5. Yellow Carnation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He coughs into his glove, managing to cough up the petal quickly and drops it as he leads the way out of the cusp of trees.  
> Barry doesn’t ask. He really looks like he wants to, though, especially when Len takes the risk to brush the imaginary lint off his shoulder. But he doesn’t.  
> He doesn’t know if he’s thankful or not.

He agrees to help. Of course he does.

He’s fucking dying from loving the kid.

He’s a damn idiot _and_ a masochist, apparently.

Barry offers to let him grab some stuff from the Waverider but Len doesn’t feel like explaining himself to the team. Plus, Barry looks seconds away from rescinding that offer and just kidnapping him, so Len just shrugs and gestures for Barry to just get on with it.

 

Funnily enough, time traveling is even worse outside of the ship.

 

He’s dry heaving before Barry has fully let go of him in the present. Through the last of his nausea, he feels a hand rubbing his hunched back before it freezes and pulls away. There are a few petals on the ground now but it’s too dark for Len to see the color of them, though he can tell that they’re a different shape now. Thankfully, it’s too dark for Barry to see them at all.

“I figured I’d let you settle in the present before making the rest of the trip.” Len clears his throat, stands up, and gives Barry a cool look.

“Much appreciated. Who knew traveling by speedster could actually be worse than the ship.” He adjusts his parka and takes a breath, regretting it immediately as the pain in his lungs spikes. He doesn’t get a chance to try and breathe around the pain before the wind is knocked out of him completely and he’s just inside the entrance of STARLabs.

He holds his breath for a few seconds, despite how painful it is, to keep himself from gasping for air. He’s gotten used to working his breathing around his lungs in the last year. He glances at Barry out of the corner of his eye, tempted for a moment to tell Barry. Tell him how much Len stupidly loves him, how much of Len’s days are spent trying to move and breathe and _live_ around the fairytale evidence of how much Len loves him.

His chest seizes briefly and he stops breathing and tries to get his body to relax through it.

Barry starts leading the way through the Labs as if Len doesn’t have the blueprints completely memorized. He would normally roll his eyes, but it gives him a chance to get his body under control without Barry worrying that he’s having a stroke or something.

He finally gets his body to cooperate, pushes a small breath out before breathing a small one back in, testing. When that goes alright, he starts striding after Barry while keeping his breathing as even as possible.

He follows after Barry into the cortex, already talking before any of the team could notice him. He comments on Iris’ engagement ring, makes it a joke even as the flowers in his chest scrape and shift. She shifts the ring automatically, guiltily, but it’s her face that makes him suspicious. It’s _all_ of their faces that make him suspicious.

He expects the shock, of course.

But there’s just…a few things off in it.

Iris doesn’t look like she wants to stab him, even a little, for one.

Detective West doesn’t reach for his gun, for another.

Their silence lasts too long when Barry says why he’s there and so when the flowers start acting up, he takes that as a good time to leave. He tells Barry that he’ll be in Cisco’s lab and makes his exit.

He barely makes it to the elevators before he’s coughing, so hard and so much more painful than it’s ever been that it drives him to his knees.

The flower that makes it out (finally, finally, _finally_ ), it’s yellow and big, much bigger around than any of the other ones. His hand shakes when he picks it up and he’s swallowing convulsively as he crushes it. He’s happy he’s wearing gloves and doesn’t have to feel the soft petals that are so fucking deceptive.

He braces himself and pushes to his feet and takes the elevator down, shoving the crushed remains into his parka pocket.

When the team finally makes it down with him, he has a plan set up and he’s gotten his breathing mostly back to normal. He’s barely able to get out his normal level of dramatics, and it takes a lot out of him, so when he tells Barry he needs to get some clothes to change into and Barry offers to go get them himself, Len doesn’t even question it.

He throws his parka down on a lab table and snatches up the leather jacket as Barry hands it to him, noticing the up-and-down Barry gives him, probably taking stock of any other weapon he might have on him. It makes Len’s lip curl up slightly in a scowl, but he doesn’t particularly have the energy to keep it up.

“Oh,” he hears from behind him and turns to see Iris picking the yellow flower up off the floor from where it fell from his pocket. “A carnation. My favorite. How did you know?” She gives him a half-hearted sly, joking look and it takes everything in him to not snatch it out of her hands. He gives her a wink that gets him matching eye rolls from her and Barry instead.

 

He knows this whole thing is a problem, but it isn’t until he can’t make it to King Shark’s door before it closes because he can’t get his stupid fucking lungs to work around fucking _foliage_ that Len realizes that this might just be a _problem_.

He’s staring at Barry through the little glass window when it really sinks in that this thing is going to kill him. He knew, for course, but as Barry’s eyes widen and look behind him, it becomes so real, _too_ real.

He wants to tell Barry, to get it off his, _ha_ , chest before he gets eaten by a giant man-shark but he makes a crack about Cisco and Lisa instead, cringing at himself almost immediately. Cisco gets him out though, just in time for King Shark to get his arm cut off, and just in time for a coughing attack to start, right there as he’s sprawled out on the ground next to a disembodied limb.

Barry says his name, concern and urgency clear in his voice as Len rolls over until he’s hacking up a lung on his hands and knees.

He has tears running on his face by the time the petals make it out, his forehead resting against his clenched fists. They flutter to the concrete floor, and he might be drooling but he can’t really tell.

He’s shaking when Barry says his name again, far more urgent than before, seconds before rough hands grab him under his arms and yank him up.

Oh goody. They’ve been caught.

 

What is it about Barry Allen’s life that he can just walk away from breaking into a high-security lab simply because he loves his fiancée?

 

He makes Barry take him back to the ship immediately after. Barry looks like he wants to ask, wants to know what the _fuck_ that was in ARGUS, but Len just raises an eyebrow and Barry’s shoulders sink. Before he knows it, Barry is gone and back in the Flash suit and he’s being whisked back to the past.

Whisked is a good word for what it feels like. He has to lean against a tree for a moment afterward, thankful for the way the cold Siberian air feels on his face. Not so thankful for the way it feels in his lungs.

He coughs into his glove, managing to cough up the petal quickly and drops it as he leads the way out of the cusp of trees.

Barry doesn’t ask. He really looks like he wants to, though, especially when Len takes the risk to brush the imaginary lint off his shoulder. But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t know if he’s thankful or not.

 

Less than a month later he realizes, as he’s holding down the lever on a literal fucking _time bomb,_ why all of Team Flash looked like that when he showed up.

In their time, he’s dead. He’s _been_ dead.

The sad look in Barry’s eyes when Len made a crack at being sat at the single’s table makes a lot more sense now.

 

Huh.

 

Well.

 

At least blowing up will hurt less. It’s quicker, too.

Love takes too damn long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yellow carnation: disappointment or rejection


	6. Blue Petunia

He comes back into being in Central City about 10 feet off the ground. He yells, too shocked to roll out of the fall, and hears a snap as he hits the ground. He doesn’t feel anything, though. He’s just cold, so cold, and the air around him burns with how much warmer it is.

He lays on the ground, shaking as people on the sidewalk give him a wide berth. He can hear someone on the phone calling for help and he’s so grateful that a finding flash of yellow steals him away first.

He doesn’t remember much of the next few minutes but when he’s able to focus again he’s under an electric blanket and he has an I.V. in.

He shouts when someone touches his ankle and he loses time again.

 

The next thing he sees is a bright light and he follows it with his eyes, making the light go away.

“Leonard?” There’s a woman’s face in front of him and it takes him a full five seconds to even realize that he recognizes her. “Leonard, it’s Dr. Snow. Do you know who I am?” He watches her watch him before slowly nodding. She looks relieved and she calls to someone over her shoulder but he can’t tell who, can’t take his eyes off of her. He knows that the moment he does, he’ll lose time again.

Someone holds his hand and their hand is so warm, so much warmer than his.

“Do you know what year it is?” She turns back to look at him and the movement distracts him long enough that he can’t process the question right away. When he does, he panics. Year? What does she mean, ‘what _year_ ’? He squeezes the hand holding his and the panic must show on his face because she puts her other hand on top of his. Oh. He’s holding _her_ hand.

“It’s okay, now. Just rest.”

He does.

 

He notices the sound of violins first. He listens to the ebb and flow of the instruments until the song ends. And then he’s awake. All at once, he’s fully aware.

He looks around the makeshift hospital suite. Between the lab equipment and the hum of machines, he can tell he’s at STARLabs and he relaxes against the pillows.

He looks down at himself and takes in the flimsy scrubs and the I.V. lines and the _heated_ blanket holy _shit_ it’s hot in here. He turns off the blanket and hears someone curse next to him. He doesn’t see who it is but then Caitlin is rushing in. Cisco follows closely after and they both look…concerned. Harried. Concerned and harried.

He has to swallow a few times before he can speak.

“What the hell am I doing here?” His voice doesn’t go louder than a whisper but it still makes him cringe with how rough and dry it sounds. A glass with a straw is in his hand before he even registers the lightning.

“Barry,” Caitlin hisses. “No fast movements, we went over this!” And there’s Barry, standing far too close to the point of hovering.

He stares at the glass in his hand for probably too long because when he looks up, the lights have been dimmed and it’s just Barry in the room. He takes a sip from the straw and clears his throat.

“What happened?” His voice is still whisper soft but he resists the urge to clear his throat again.

“We were kind of hoping you could tell us that. The last time anyone saw you was in 2016.”

Oh. Right.

“The Oculus.” Barry nods and Len takes another drink of water. Heart pounding in his ears, he closes his eyes and tries not to remember the light and the fierce, cutting cold.

“What year is it?” He knows he’ll regret asking, but he has to know eventually, right?

“It’s 2019.” Ah, shit.

He doesn’t realize he’s shaking until Barry takes the glass from him and wipes off the water that splashed onto his hand. He still doesn’t open his eyes until a hand brushes against the grain of his hair, a gesture so stupidly soothing that it makes his shaking slow to a stop and when he opens his eyes, he half expects his mother to be there. It’s hard to breathe, looking up at Barry.

“You’re okay. It’s going to be okay.” Barry looks at him gently and Len has to fight every instinct to lean into that hand. “Cisco is going to call your sister and I’ll get Gideon to call the Waverider.” Len things about all that before nodding, making the hand fall away.

He misses it immediately.

“Caitlin has something she wants to talk to you about, too. I’ll send her back in.” Len looks down and listens to his footsteps receding, the click of heels replacing them. When Caitlin comes in, she closes the door behind her.

That can’t be good.

“I took some scans while you were…out of it, and I found something of a slight concern.” There’s a lot to unpack there that he doesn’t really have the energy to deal with so he just nods. She starts poking around on her tablet while walking towards the bed before holding it out in front of him.

It’s a scan. Of a chest.

And it’s with that, that he remembers.

“I found extensive scarring on your lungs. Like, if ‘I didn’t know better I’d say you’ve been breathing in glass for years’ levels of scarring. Scarring that could absolutely be fixed by Gideon, and should have been.” He stares at the scan and, well, she’s really not wrong. “I would like your permission to connect to Gideon’s medical history of you.” He pulls his eyes slowly away from the scan to stare at her for what is probably a disconcertingly long time.

“Or, I could just tell you what they’re from,” he says softly, and the tablet sags in her hold slightly with shock.

“Oh. You’d…you’d actually tell me?” He looks purposely around the room and then down at himself in the hospital bed.

“I mean, you _are_ my doctor, are you not?” She raises an eyebrow and the corner of her mouth twitches up at his dry tone. “Plus, it’ll be fun to see your face when I tell you.” She squints at him before dropping the tablet onto the bed next to his leg and crossing her arms.

“Try me, Snart.”

 

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” She’s looking at him intently, clearly trying to tell if he’s lying or not.

“And it’s—“ she cuts herself off while gesturing vaguely over her shoulder. He nods. Both of her eyebrows raise in a look that might be shock but looks too much like something else.

“Okay, I called your team.” Caitlin jolts at Barry’s sudden appearance. “They should be here soon. Well, any minute probably considering that they’re _time travelers._ ” Len can feel his eyes crinkle slightly with a smile at Barry’s eye roll as if he’s not the tardiest speedster that ever existed.

His smile drops away when he can feel a far too familiar seizing in his chest. He clenches a fist and grinds his teeth, trying to keep the cough in. Thankfully, Len hears the rushed stomping of boots heading towards the cortex and Barry turns to go meet the team.

Len lets out the cough he was holding, twisting onto his side and coughing against the mattress as the pain makes his whole body shake, makes tears prick in his eyes. A warm hand smoothes down his back and he doesn’t know if he wants to grab it to shove it away, or to hold on for dear life.

This one comes out smooth and it’s…well, it’s beautiful. Or it would be if it hadn’t just made its way out of his lungs. It’s blue, almost purple.

There’s a gloved hand in front of his face when he’s able to sit back up and he puts the flower in it. Caitlin takes it and puts it into a glass case.

But not before scrolling around on her phone. He watches her as he hears the voices of his team, loud and obnoxious.

She hands him her phone just as the voices start getting closer.

It’s open to a flower website, onto the exact flower now in Caitlin’s hands, and he reads the description.

 

“Holy shit,” Mick’s rough voice is the first that he hears and he locks the phone before dropping it into his lap. When he looks up, he sees Mick practically taking up the entire doorway, though he can still see Raymond’s head popping up from behind him.

“Move out of the fucking way, Rory. I want to see—“ Sara jabs a finger into Mick’s side, making him groan and flinch, and then she pushes her way into the room, Raymond following directly behind her. They both pause, however, before Raymond crosses the room in three long strides and grabs Len into a hug. Len looks at Mick in panic only to get a shrug in response.

“Don’t die next time. Then Haircut wouldn’t have to get all girly on your ass.” Len scowls at Mick but raises a hand to pat awkwardly on Raymond’s back. That gets his squeezed harder before he’s released. He looks at the new faces just outside the doorway and raises an eyebrow at Sara.

“Hey, where’s—“ he’s cut off by the sound of running boots and clinking chains and he hears Cisco’s startled shout before Lisa is shoving through the team and launching herself onto his bed.

“You fucking _asshole_ ,” she hisses at him and she looks like she wants to actually strangle him before grabbing him around the neck in a hug so hard that it makes spots start to appear in his vision.

He hugs her back harder.

He ignores the pain in his chest, ignores how hard it is to breathe. Just holds the sister he thought he’d never see again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blue petunia: deep trust, peacefulness, intimacy


End file.
